Using research evidence for policy-making: rapid response. Report of the EVIPNet Europe Multicountry Meeting for Eastern Europe and Central Asia (2020)

The Evidence-informed Policy Network (EVIPNet) Europe is an initiative of the WHO Regional Office for Europe. It supports WHO Member States to develop a culture and practice of designing health policies based on the best available research evidence. Annual Network meetings with a different composition of members and topics serve as a major platform for communication, collaboration and capacity-building. In February 2020, the EVIPNet Europe multicountry meeting for Eastern Europe and Central Asia was hosted in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan and attended by 20 participants from eight countries.

With the overall goal of exploring appropriate strategies to institutionalize evidence-informed policy-making (EIP) and EVIPNet activities at the country level, the workshop allowed ample opportunities for meeting participants to share and learn from the EIP experiences of neighbouring countries. Over the course of three days, participants discussed the overall EIP landscape in their countries, existing structures and stakeholders, challenges and opportunities, as well as country EIP workplans for 2020–2021. An important output of the meeting was that meeting participants learned to prepare draft rapid syntheses through guided practical sessions.